


Castle of a Castle

by Prismatic Bell (Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor)



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | All Media Types, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bedtime, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Did I mention this is nothing but pure FLUFF, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Dreams, Fluff, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Implied Nonhuman Characters, May Cause Diabetes, Other, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:19:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2428481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor/pseuds/Prismatic%20Bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Crystal Tokyo, Zoisite's sleep is disturbed by a tiny and distraught visitor. He and Kunzite make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Castle of a Castle

**Author's Note:**

> THREE. ALL IMPORTANT. NO SHORT NOTES THIS TIME, I AM SORRY.
> 
> 1) There are no lyrics to Zoisite's lullabye because I would've had to write them in Ell to make sure they rhymed properly before translating back into English and I was so not up to it for a three-page story. If you were hoping for words, I'm sorry. There IS a tune, however--it's taken from the same song as the title, "Famous Yet" by Ryan Star.
> 
> 2) "Babi" is pronounced with a short A--not like "baby." It's a corrupted form of Zoisite's mother tongue and it's an analogue to "Uncle" or "Aunt" in human languages, but expresses a concept not present in Japanese or English (that his gender very roughly corresponds to what humans call male, but trying to label it ONLY as that is an exercise in futility) due to both languages' lack of nonhuman speakers.
> 
> 3) Although not set in the same 'verse as _Just How To Be_ , the concept of Kunzite as Darkfae and Zoisite as some form of Fae are still present. Zoisite is not, in fact, just pulling shit out of his ass to satisfy Chibi-Usa with when he tells her things, he's very serious about being from a different culture than she.

Someone is _looking_ at him.

No—someone who _isn't Kunzite_ is looking at him.

It's what wakes him, and then he lays still in their nest, eyes closed, forcing himself to breathe deeply while he tries to sense who—or what—is in their room. He can't imagine anyone actually able to get inside the palace to attack, but there's a first for everything.

And then a very small voice whispers his name.

“Babi Zoisite?”

He opens his eyes, rolls on his side. “Little Rabbit?”

“I'm scared.”

He sits up, pauses, pulls the blanket back around his waist. The human population that became Crystal Tokyo is prudish on a level he'll never understand. “What is it?”

He hears a sniffle from his right and a snore from his left. No good. “I had a bad dream when I woke up there was a _noise_ and I went to Mommy and Daddy's room but I couldn't open the _door_ and I can't find Venus-sama or Mars-san and Aunt Ami and Aunt Makoto are working and it's _late_ and if I go to Puu she'll just tell me to go back to _bed!_ ”

The snores turn into a rumble as the sniffle raises in both pitch and volume and turns into crying. Zoisite shifts and hunts along the edge of the floor for the pair of Kunzite's flannel bottoms he shed when he climbed into bed. “Shh, Little Rabbit.” Success. He snakes them under the covers and struggles into them before pushing back the covers. Minako swears there's a trick to it, but she won't show him, the cruel wench. _Someday we'll be attacked and you'll wonder where I am and I'll still be here trying to get dressed,_ he told her. _Someday we'll be attacked and you'll show up on the battlefield, naked and throwing fireballs, don't lie,_ she told him.

“I want Daddy.”

“They probably locked the door to have some time alone, not to keep you out,” he suggests, and wonders if it's worth the struggle to get her into a room that isn't the bedroom as Kunzite lets out the kind of snore that makes Zoisite think of a defective motorcycle. He reaches out absently with one foot and rolls Kunzite back onto his side. “Come on, let's go get some milk.”

“But why would they want to be _alone?_ ”

“Because grownups do, sometimes.” Behind him, Kunzite's snores stop. Zoisite sighs and hopes for mercy.

“But why?”

“Because when grownups who love each other kiss they make really weird faces and nobody could ever take the Queen seriously again if they saw it,” he says. It's the first thing that comes into his head that isn't something Rei and Makoto would eviscerate him for, but it makes her giggle.

“Like you?”

“Like—excuse you, I've never made a ridiculous face in my life,” he tells her, and pokes her in what he hopes is the stomach. Unlike Kunzite, he can't see in the dark; it _should_ be her stomach for height, but it might as easily be her arm.

“What he doesn't tell you is what he looks like in the morning,” a half-sleeping voice grumbles from the nest. “What do you do in here, Little Rabbit?”

“She took a fright after a nightmare,” Zoisite says, and gives up on taking her for milk. Instead he tugs her into his lap and runs a hand through her hair. It's been fascinating to him since the first time Ami took the tiny still pink thing out of Makoto's arms and put her in Zoisite's and said _make sure you keep a hand under her head_ , silky and fine and fuzzed in perfect little ringlets, nothing like the mess on his own head. Chibi-Usa burrows her head against his shoulder. “She's all right now. Right, little one?”

There's a whine he's pretty sure is Chibi-Usa speak for _I don't want to go back to my room._ Spoilt little thing, he thinks, ignoring utterly his own part in said spoiling. “One of us can look in your room.”

She shakes her head against his shoulder. He sighs and sends a long-suffering glance in Kunzite's direction—he can't see Kunzite but Kunzite can see him, and after a moment Kunzite lets out an amused snort.

“You can stay the night here, but don't make a habit of it,” he says. She will, of course. Offering Chibi-Usa affection is like feeding a cat and then expecting to be rid of it, and he knows it as soon as she clambers off his lap and into _his spot_.

“Your bed is weird.”

“It's not a bed, it's a nest. In the Golden Kingdom people like us dug our beds under trees, like this.”

“But it's in a floor.”

“Well, we're not outside now, are we?” He finds a blanket and pulls it up over her shoulders. “We didn't have microplush, either.”

“Is it safe?”

“You're betwixt two of the heads of the Royal Guard, Little Rabbit. I'd say there are few places safer.” 

And thank the Goddesses for Kunzite's answer, because Chibi-Usa stole Zoisite's pillow and he's speechless. She couldn't even _share_ it, she _took_ it. The whole thing. With one tiny head and her hair already brushed out for the night.

Zoisite bites back a whine since he has to be the adult and slips back into the blankets, and she rolls over and clings to him like a limpet. After a few seconds, he feels Kunzite's arms slide around them both.

Absent Kunzite's chin to tuck his head under, he buries his face in Chibi-Usa's hair. She lets out the kind of sigh Zoisite recognizes from bunking with Jadeite—if they could convince women to watch him sleep instead of trying to talk to him, Zoisite has told Kunzite, they'd have no trouble finding him a mate—and throws an arm over his side.

“Do you know any lullabies?”

“None you'd know.”

She lets out a whine. Zoisite feels a low and gentle rumble as the earth around them responds to Kunzite's amusement.

“You're learning terrible habits from your babi.”

“I can't sleep.”

“You just laid down, close your eyes,” Zoisite tells her, and while he doesn't have Kunzite's ability to actually _see_ the brown eyes staring cynically up at him, he can feel them.

“Lullaby.”

Zoisite tips his head back and thinks. “I don't remember all the words.”

“Try.”

He hums a bit, trying to pick up the thread of words; he gets as far as _under the willow where my true love lay_ , and repeats it twice until the next part of the verse pops into his head. He could as easily sing gibberish, for all Chibi-Usa understands the language he can sing in, but—in that strange way he assumes she must have inherited as Usagi Moonborn—she'd know.

Somewhere between watching the lover under the willow and kissing the lover under the willow he feels Kunzite touch his shoulder, and trails off. “She's asleep?”

“Well on, I should say.”

“I didn't mean to wake you.”

“It's no matter. You should sleep too.”

Zoisite nods and rests his face in a cloud of pink curls. They smell of lemon shampoo, and he wrinkles his nose. 

Kunzite lets out a low snore. Zoisite closes his eyes and smiles.

He'll live without a pillow for one night.


End file.
